Tempura - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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, is a Japanese dish of seafood

Seafood

Seafood is any form of marine life regarded as food by humans. Seafoods include fish, molluscs , crustaceans , echinoderms . Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are also seafood, and are widely eaten around the world, especially in Asia...

or vegetables that have been battered

Batter (cooking)

Batter is a semi-liquid mixture of one or more flours combined with liquids such as water, milk or eggs used to prepare various foods. Often a leavening agent such as baking powder is included to aerate and fluff up the batter as it cooks, or the mixture may be naturally fermented for this purpose...

and deep fried

Deep frying

Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot oil or fat. This is normally performed with a deep fryer or chip pan; industrially, a pressure fryer or vacuum fryer may be used....

Batter

A light batter

Batter (cooking)

is made of cold water (sometimes sparkling water is used to keep the batter light) and soft wheat flour

Wheat flour

Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. More wheat flour is produced than any other flour. Wheat varieties are called "clean," "white," or "brown" if they have high gluten content, and they are called "soft" or "weak" flour if gluten content is low...

(cake, pastry or all-purpose flour). Eggs

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

, baking soda or baking powder

Baking powder

Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods such as muffins, cakes, scones and American-style biscuits. Baking powder works by releasing carbon dioxide gas into a batter or dough through an acid-base reaction, causing bubbles in...

, starch

Starch

Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...

, oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

, and/or spices may also be added. Tempura batter is traditionally mixed in small batches using chopsticks

Chopsticks

Chopsticks are small, often tapered, sticks used in pairs of equal length as the traditional eating utensils of China and its diaspora, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Northern provinces of Laos, Thailand and Burma. Generally believed to have originated in ancient China, they can also be found in some...

for only a few seconds, leaving lumps in the mixture that, along with the cold batter temperature, result in the unique fluffy and crisp tempura structure when cooked. The batter is often kept cold by adding ice, or by placing the bowl inside a larger bowl with ice in it. Overmixing the batter will result in activation of wheat gluten

Gluten

Gluten is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye...

, which causes the flour mixture to become chewy and dough-like when fried.

Specially formulated tempura flour is available in worldwide supermarkets. This is generally light (low-gluten) flour, and occasionally contains leaveners such as baking powder.

Tempura generally does not use breadcrumbs (panko

Panko

is a variety of flaky bread crumb used in Japanese cuisine as a crunchy coating for fried foods, such as tonkatsu. Panko is made from bread baked by passing an electric current through the dough, yielding bread without crusts, and it has a crisper, airier texture than most types of breading found...

) in the coating. Generally, fried foods which are coated with breadcrumbs are considered to be furai, Japanese-invented Western-style deep fried foods, such as tonkatsu
Tonkatsu
Tonkatsu , invented in the late 19th century, is a popular dish in Japan. It consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick and sliced into bite-sized pieces, generally served with shredded cabbage and/or miso soup...

or ebi furai
Fried prawn
is a deep fried cuisine popular in Japan as well as Japanese restaurants worldwide. It is a speciality of the city of Nagoya.A popular ingredient of Japanese bento, is a common menu item at bentō shops....

(fried prawn).

Frying

Thin slices or strips of vegetables or seafood are dipped in the batter, then briefly deep-fried in hot oil

Cooking oil

Cooking oil is purified fat of plant origin, which is usually liquid at room temperature ....

. Vegetable oil or canola oil are most common; however, tempura was traditionally cooked using sesame oil

Sesame oil

Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. Besides being used as a cooking oil in South India, it is often used as a flavor enhancer in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and to a lesser extent Southeast Asian cuisine.The oil from the nutrient rich seed is popular in alternative...

. Many specialty shops still use sesame oil or tea seed oil, and it is thought certain compounds in these oils help to produce light, crispier batter.

When cooking shellfish, squid, or hard-skinned watery vegetables, such as bell pepper or eggplant, the skin is usually scored with a knife to prevent the ingredients from bursting during cooking, which can cause serious burns from splashing oil.

Oil temperature is generally kept between 160 and 180 degrees Celsius, depending on the ingredient. To preserve the natural flavor and texture of the ingredients, care is taken not to overcook tempura. Cooking times range between a few seconds for delicate leaf vegetables, to several minutes for thick items or large kaki-age fritters.

The bits of batter (known as tenkasu
Tenkasu
are crunchy bits of deep fried flour-batter used in Japanese cuisine, for example in takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and udon. Tenkasu is also called ....

) are scooped out between batches of tempura, so they do not burn and leave a bad flavor in the oil. A small mesh scoop is used for this purpose. Tenkasu are often reserved as ingredients in other dishes or as a topping.

Ingredients

Ingredients in traditional tempura include:

prawn
Prawn
Prawns are decapod crustaceans of the sub-order Dendrobranchiata. There are 540 extant species, in seven families, and a fossil record extending back to the Devonian...
shrimp
Shrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
squid
Squid
Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles...
scallop
Scallop
A scallop is a marine bivalve mollusk of the family Pectinidae. Scallops are a cosmopolitan family, found in all of the world's oceans. Many scallops are highly prized as a food source...
anago (conger
Conger
Conger is a genus of marine congrid eels. It includes some of the largest types of eels, ranging up to 3 m in length, in the case of the European conger...

eel)
ayu
Ayu
The or sweetfish, Plecoglossus altivelis, is an amphidromous fish, the only species in the genus Plecoglossus and in family Plecoglossidae. It is a relative of the smelts and is placed in the order Osmeriformes...

(sweetfish)
crab
Crab
True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
fish
Fish (food)
Fish is a food consumed by many species, including humans. The word "fish" refers to both the animal and to the food prepared from it. Fish has been an important source of protein for humans throughout recorded history.-Terminology:...
bell pepper
Bell pepper
Bell pepper, also known as sweet pepper or a pepper and capsicum , is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum . Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange and green. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as...
kabocha
Kabocha
Kabocha is a Japanese variety of winter squash. The word kabocha has come to mean a general type of winter squash to many English-speaking growers and buyers. In some cultures it is revered as an aphrodisiac....

squash
eggplant
carrot
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
burdock
Greater burdock
Greater burdock, Edible burdock, or Lappa Burdock is a biennial plant of the Arctium genus in the Asteraceae family, cultivated in gardens for its root used as a vegetable.-Description:...
green beans
sweet potato
Sweet potato
The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...
yam
Yam (vegetable)
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea . These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania...
potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
renkon (lotus
Nelumbo
Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers resembling water lilies, commonly known as lotus. The generic name is derived from the Sinhalese word Nelum. There are only two known living species in the genus. The sacred lotus is native to Asia, and is the better known of the two...

root)
shiitake mushroom
pumpkin
Pumpkin
A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae . It commonly refers to cultivars of any one of the species Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata, and is native to North America...
mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

s
bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

shoots
okra
Okra
Okra is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins...

Serving and presentation

Cooked bits of tempura are either eaten with dipping sauce, salted without sauce, or used to assemble other dishes. Tempura is commonly served with grated daikon

Daikon

Daikon , Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus, also called White Radish, Japanese radish, Oriental radish, Chinese radish, lo bok and Mooli , is a mild flavoured, very large, white East Asian radish...

and eaten hot immediately after frying. In Japan, it is often found in bowls of soba or udon soup often in the form of a shrimp, shiso leaf, or fritter. The most common sauce is tentsuyu
Tentsuyu
Tentsuyu is Japanese tempura dipping sauce.The recipe for tentsuyu depends on the seasons and on the ingredients for which tentsuyu is being prepared. A general, all-purpose, tentsuyu might consists of three parts dashi, one part mirin, and one part soy sauce...

sauce (roughly three parts dashi
Dashi
Dashi is a class of soup and cooking stock, considered fundamental to Japanese cooking. In 1980, Shizuo Tsuji wrote: "Many substitutes for dashi are possible, but without dashi, dishes are merely à la japonaise and lack the authentic flavor." Dashi forms the base for miso soup, clear broth, noodle...

, one part mirin
Mirin
is an essential condiment used in Japanese cuisine, consisting of 40%–50% sugar. It is a kind of rice wine similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content—14% instead of 20%. There are three general types. The first is hon mirin , which contains alcohol. The second is shio mirin, which contains...

, and one part shoyu

Soy sauce

Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae molds, along with water and salt...

). Alternatively, tempura may be sprinkled with sea salt

Sea salt

Sea salt, salt obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics. It is historically called bay salt or solar salt...

before eating. Mixtures of powdered green tea

Matcha

refers to finely-milled green tea, most popular in Japan. The cultural activity called the Japanese tea ceremony centers on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha. In modern times, matcha has also come to be used to flavour and dye foods such as mochi and soba noodles, green tea ice cream...

and salt or yuzu
Yuzu
The yuzu is a citrus fruit and plant originating in East Asia. It is believed to be a hybrid of sour mandarin and Ichang papeda...

and salt are also used.

is a type of tempura made with mixed vegetable strips, such as onion, carrot, and burdock, and sometimes including shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

, which are deep fried as small round fritter

Fritter

A fritter is any kind of food coated in batter and deep fried. Although very similar to a doughnut it differs in the fact that it requires some base ingredient beyond the dough it is cooked with.-Anglo-American fritters:...

s.

Tempura is also used in combination with other foods. When served over soba
Soba
is the Japanese name for buckwheat. It is synonymous with a type of thin noodle made from buckwheat flour, and in Japan can refer to any thin noodle . Soba noodles are served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot broth as a noodle soup...

(buckwheat noodles), it is called tempura soba or tensoba
Tensoba
Tensoba, or Tempura Soba is a dish of soba noodles and tempura served in a hot, dark broth made from dashi, soy sauce, and other ingredients. Soba and shrimp tempura is the most common version....

. Tempura is also served as a donburi
Donburi
Donburi is a Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. Donburi meals are served in oversized rice bowls also called donburi...

dish where tempura shrimp and vegetables are served over steamed rice in a bowl (tendon) and on top of udon
Udon
is a type of thick wheat-flour noodle of Japanese cuisine.Udon is usually served hot as noodle soup in its simplest form as kake udon, in a mildly flavoured broth called kakejiru which is made of dashi, soy sauce , and mirin. It is usually topped with thinly chopped scallions...

soup (tempura udon).

Origins

Tempura was introduced to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century by Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

Jesuits, during the same period that panko

Panko

and such dishes as tonkatsu

Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu , invented in the late 19th century, is a popular dish in Japan. It consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick and sliced into bite-sized pieces, generally served with shredded cabbage and/or miso soup...

were also introduced from Portugal

Portugal

. Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

, founder and first shogun

Shotgun

A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...

of the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

of Japan, reportedly loved tempura.

Etymology

The word "tempura", or the technique of dipping fish and vegetables into a batter and frying them, comes from the word "tempora", a Latin word meaning "times", "time period" used by both Spanish and Portuguese missionaries to refer to the Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

en period or Ember Days

Ember days

In the liturgical calendar of the Western Christian churches, Ember days are four separate sets of three days within the same week — specifically, the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday — roughly equidistant in the circuit of the year, that were formerly set aside for fasting and prayer...

(ad tempora quadragesimae), Fridays, and other Christian holy days. Ember Days or quattuor tempora refer to holy days when Catholics avoid meat and instead eat fish or vegetables. The idea that the word "tempura" may have been derived from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

noun tempero, meaning a spicy condiment or peppery seasoning, or from the verb temperar, meaning "to season" has not been substantiated. However, the Japanese language could easily have assumed the word "tempero" as is, without changing any vowels as both languages are phonetically similar. There is still today a dish in Portugal

Portugal

very similar to tempura called peixinhos da horta, "garden fishies."

The term "tempura" is thought to have gained popularity in southern Japan; it became widely used to refer to any sort of food prepared using hot oil, including some already existing Japanese foods. Today, the word "tempura" is also commonly used to refer to satsuma age
Satsuma age
is a fried fishcake from Kagoshima, Japan. MSG may be added. Surimi and flour is mixed to make a compact paste that is solidified through frying. It is a specialty of the Satsuma region. It is known as chikiagi in Okinawa.- Outline :...

, a fried fish cake which is made without batter.

Japan

In Japan, restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

s specializing in tempura are called tenpura-ya and range from inexpensive fast food

Fast food

Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...

chains to very expensive five-star restaurants. Many restaurants offer tempura as part of a set meal or a bento
Bento
is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware...

(lunch box), and it is also a popular ingredient in take-out or convenience store bento boxes. The ingredients and styles of cooking and serving tempura vary greatly through the country, with importance being placed on using fresh, seasonal ingredients.

Outside of Japan

Outside Japan (as well as recently in Japan), there are many nontraditional and fusion

Fusion cuisine

Fusion cuisine combines elements of various culinary traditions while not being categorized per any one particular cuisine style, and can pertain to innovations in many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.-Categories and types:...

uses of tempura. Chefs over the world include tempura dishes on their menus, and a wide variety of different batters and ingredients are used, including the nontraditional broccoli

Broccoli

Broccoli is a plant in the cabbage family, whose large flower head is used as a vegetable.-General:The word broccoli, from the Italian plural of , refers to "the flowering top of a cabbage"....

, zucchini

Zucchini

The zucchini is a summer squash which often grows to nearly a meter in length, but which is usually harvested at half that size or less. It is a hybrid of the cucumber. Along with certain other squashes, it belongs to the species Cucurbita pepo. Zucchini can be dark or light green...

, asparagus

Asparagus

Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...

and chuchu

Chayote

The chayote , also known as christophene, vegetable pear, mirliton, pear squash, christophine , chouchoute , choko , starprecianté, citrayota, citrayote , chuchu , chow chow , cho cho , sayote ,...

. More unusual ingredients may include nori

Nori

is the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species of the red alga Porphyra including most notably P. yezoensis and P. tenera, sometimes called laver. Finished products are made by a shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking...

slices, dry fruit such as banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

, and ice cream

Ice cream

Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...

. American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

restaurants are known to serve tempura in the form of various meats, particularly chicken, and cheeses, usually mozzarella. A variation is to use panko

Panko

(bread crumbs), which results in a crisper consistency than tempura batter. Tempura (particularly shrimp) is often used as a filling in makizushi
Sushi
is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...

. A more recent variation of tempura sushi has entire pieces of sushi being dipped in batter and tempura-fried.

In northern Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, tempura is also known as tiānfùluō and can be found at night market

Night market

Night markets or night bazaars are street markets which operate at night and are generally dedicated to more leisurely strolling, shopping, and eating than more businesslike day markets.-Geographical spread:...

s such as Shilin Night Market

Shilin Night Market

The Shilin Night Market is a night market in the Shilin District of Taipei, Taiwan, and is often considered to be the largest and most famous night market in the city.-Overview:...

and Keelung Temple Night Market. The ingredients and method used for making Taiwanese tempura are completely different from Japanese tempura, and they share only the name. In southern Taiwan, however, it is known as hétián and is more the counterpart to oden
Oden
Oden is a Japanese winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon radish, konnyaku, and processed fish cakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth. Ingredients vary according to region and between each household...

. Oden is generally known as or "Kantō cooking" in reference to the Kantō

Kanto region

The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain....

region of Japan.

Batter

Frying

Ingredients

Serving and presentation

Origins

Etymology

Japan

Outside of Japan

See also